Tag Archives: crackers

Last year, I made graham crackers from scratch with excellent results. That success started a whole serious of “I-wonder-if-I-could-make…” questions. The graham crackers I made at home were far more delicious than any store-bought, boxed variety. Armed with the right recipe, it seemed anything made from scratch had to taste better. Time seemed to be the limiting factor. As wonderful as the graham crackers were, a batch of a dozen took quite a bit of time to create. Saltines? We use a lot of them for breading fried clams and fish, but it seemed like a waste to bake a batch only to smash them to bits for a single recipe. The next cracker I contemplated was Cheez-Its.

Cheddar cheese crackers are tiny, with lovely ridged edges and cute little holes. I researched several recipes and discovered that these tasty little snacks required only five ingredients and a couple of hours total, most of which is chilling time in the refrigerator.

We have noticed a huge difference in the flavor of our food when we use excellent ingredients. The addictive quality of these crackers came from the combination of high quality flour, cheese, and butter. The flour was Bob’s Red Mill unbleached all-purpose. Everything we’ve baked with this flour tastes noticeably better. The butter was Tillamook’s unsalted organic, and the cheese was Kerrygold Dubliner sharp cheddar cheese.

We’ve used these crackers as croutons on salads and can imagine they would be perfect alongside a homemade bowl of soup or chili. We may have to keep imagining this, as the crackers are disappearing by the handfuls!

Cheddar Cheese Crackers

Ingredients

8 oz. shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 tsp. kosher salt

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tbsp ice cold water

Directions

In a stand mixer (fitted with paddle attachment), mix cheese, butter, and salt on medium speed until well-incorporated.

Add flour.

Mix on low speed.

Slowly add ice water. Dough should form into a ball.

Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Split dough in half.

Roll one half into a rectangle, about 10 x 12 inches. Dough should be thin, about 1/8 inch.

Use a fluted pastry cutter and cut dough into 1-inch strips. Cut strips into 1-inch squares.

Place squares on baking sheets, they can be close together, but not touching.

I found a cheesecake recipe I wanted to experiment with, and, off course, I needed a graham cracker crust. Since we hadn’t sent up any graham crackers, my choices were to buy some at our local store, order them through Amazon.com, or forget the whole idea. Prices at the Native Store are too high, so I ruled that out, and with only five weeks remaining till we head south, it seemed late to be ordering food. The next obvious step was to give up. Ha! That’s not me! I searched around and found a couple of recipes for graham crackers from scratch. Fantastic! My crackers came out looking a little rough around the edges, but they tasted perfect. Actually, in our opinion, they taste better than store-bought. These homemade beauties have a crisp cracker crunch and a sweet honey-cinnamon taste. Now, I’ll tackle the cheesecake recipe.

Blend butter, sugar, honey and corn syrup until well mixed and fluffy. Add vanilla and mix.

Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Stir in milk. You should have a nice ball of dough at the end of this step.

Cover dough and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Roll the dough out on a well-floured surface. It is easiest to do this working with only a quarter section of the dough at a time. Roll until the dough is about 1/8″ thick. Cut the dough into rectangles using a knife. Place rectangles on ungreased cookie sheets. Prick decorative holes with toothpick. If desired, sprinkle cinnamon and sugar topping on crackers.

Bake for 13 minutes. Finished crackers will be browned and will become more crisp as they cool. Cool on wire racks.